- [Male Interviewer] So, tell me about the song
you put together for this movie.
- It's really good, I like it,
but then again, I wrote it, I'm going to like it right?
Scooter, shot one.
- [Male Interviewer] Tell me about the scooter.
- Oh, shit, oh no it closed.
(woman laughing)
My magic hour is the mornings.
Here we go.
This is starting fresh.
I like waking with the sun and I like to, you know,
I'm a morning person.
So this is my building,
it's a building my songs bought, which is really cool.
But I've been down the street since pre-historic times,
like, since 1985.
And I really like it there.
(pleasant acoustic guitar music)
- [Female Interviewer] So, um, you're growing up
and you are--
- [Diane] A juvenile delinquent.
- [Female Interviewer] A juvenile delinquent in Van Nuys?
- Yeah, I grew up in Van Nuys.
I hated school, I got in a lot of trouble.
I got kicked out of a couple schools.
You know, just normal things like that.
'Cause all I cared about was music.
All I cared about was writing songs.
There was no plan B for me, this was what I was doing.
It's a weird thing, usually someone loves music,
they want to be on the stage, they want to be in a band,
they want to sing, not me.
I wanted to be the name in the parentheses.
(pleasant piano music)
You know, I play guitar and piano, but you know,
I'm certainly not a musician.
I know chords, I can get around to write a good song.
You know, but, I don't play very good.
And when I would break into the practice rooms
at CSUN, I would just,
I wouldn't go in there to practice,
I'd go in there to write songs.
My first big break was a song called Rhythm of the Night.
♪ Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night ♪
- It was 1985.
You know, it made people more aware of me,
more likely to take my phone call,
more likely to listen to my songs,
more likely to think a song they didn't like last week
was a hit song this week, you know how that goes.
When I first met Clive,
I had just written Rhythm of the Night
and I was so excited that he wanted to meet me
and then he didn't like any of the songs I played him.
And I went out and bought a really expensive sweater
that I couldn't afford 'cause I was so depressed.
But then later I worked with him a lot.
The thing with me is I always come back.
If someone doesn't like something, I'm back the next day
or the next week with more,
so that's how I developed my relationship with Clive.
♪ Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night ♪
How's it go?
I can't remember somethin' I wrote a week ago,
much less something I wrote 30 years ago.
I forget so many of my songs.
I go, I wrote that?
Wow, you know.
You don't have to be in love to write a love song,
I'm proof of that.
I just have a good imagination.
I love my cat, I do.
This is my best friend.
(cat sharply meowing)
Oh, sorry.
You want to come in, right?
Come 'ere.
I could stay awake just to hear her purring, it's weird.
Alright well, here we go, here we go.
That's my bird, Butt-Wings, he's 26 years old.
He's a little asshole.
I love all animals, I'm a big animal advocate.
But I think cats are my favorite.
You have to earn their love.
I like that.
(halting electric guitar music)
- [Female Interviewer] You've worked with all
the great singers, Cher and Barbra Streisand.
- Yeah.
- [Female Interviewer] And everybody.
And I love Un-Break My Heart. - Thank you.
- [Female Interviewer] It's like one of my favorite songs
of all time.
- She didn't want to do that song.
♪ Don't leave me in all this pain ♪
- Toni didn't like the song and Clive made her do it.
Clive's like, you know, you want your album to come out?
That's going to be your single.
♪ Un-break my heart ♪
- I think she learned to love it after she won the Grammy.
With something like I Don't Want To Miss A Thing,
I never thought Aerosmith would do my song.
♪ I could stay awake just to hear you breathin' ♪
- His daughter was in the movie, Liv Tyler,
and Bruce Willis played her dad and he died,
and I think when Steven Tyler saw it,
he was really moved.
("I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith)
So this is my writing room,
my old writing room, but I still use it.
There you are, this is the inside of my brain,
which isn't good, doesn't say good things
about my brain does it?
Maybe it does, maybe it does say good things about my brain.
- [Female Interviewer] What's your process
for writing for a film?
- It's kind of hard to really explain,
like I never like to get into the nuts and bolts
of what I do 'cause it's magical to me.
Like, I don't try to analyze it, I just do it.
I kind of sit down and come up with ideas
and titles and chords.
Just sitting her, ah, pulling my hair out.
I don't know, that's what I do.
My brain's like a computer and I hear about somebody
or read about something, or read a script or.
- [Female Interviewer] So are you like a savant?
- I dunno, I'm probably the idiot of idiot savant.
I think I'm the first half of that.
(women chuckling)
I'm going to be her someday.
- [Female Interviewer] Who is that?
- I don't know.
A lot of things have to come into play to make a hit song.
I think I know when I've written one, but you know what?
Someone has to believe in it, you have to like,
get through the politics, you have to like,
convince somebody to do the song.
Sometimes they don't want to do it, right?
- [Female Journalist] 'Cause there's a lot of people
you have to go through. - I have to fight for,
like I still have to fight for stuff.
You have no idea.
I still have to fight for stuff.
Just getting things to happen.
Sometimes, someone doesn't want to put a record out,
you know, I remember even with Til It Happens to You,
the label didn't want to put that song out.
I was like, wait, why don't want to like,
it's great, it's a great record and I knew what it was.
♪ You tell me hold your head up ♪
- And so I kind of helped get the video financed.
I asked Catherine Hardwicke to do it as a favor.
You know, it was kind of all under the radar.
♪ Til it happens to you ♪
♪ You won't know how I feel ♪
- I made that happen, I go,
without a video nothing's going to ever happen,
we have to do this.
So I put my money in it.
And then they kind of made us call it a PSA.
It's not a P--
like, 'cause they didn't want it to come out.
I was like, okay can come out as a PSA, you know.
You know, just, when I believe it you can't stop me.
("Til It Happens to You" by Lady Gaga)
I was looking at the comments
and there was this one, this girl goes,
I love this song so much, I'm 12 years old
and I was molested and I know nobody's going to believe me,
but this is so important, it's the most beautiful thing.
And I started crying, and I'm thinking like,
this song, or other songs, they're powerful.
They move people to action.
And they comfort you,
and they let you know that you're not alone.
That even helped me talk about my own molestation.
I was doing a Times Talk,
it was me and Gaga and the directors
and I blurted out, I got molested at 12!
And I was like, what did I just do?
I can't believe I just said that.
And I'd never, I told my mom later,
you know, when she was older.
You know, and I think I told one friend.
And I just never talked about it, you know?
So should I sing part of this?
Are you guys filming?
Should I just do it?
- [Female Interviewer] Yeah, go for it.
- [Woman] Yes.
(pleasant piano music)
- When each day just takes another piece of you.
Everybody takes all they can get from you
til you're left with almost nothing left of you.
I love that.
'Cause that feels like that sometimes, right?
I'll catch your tears, the tears when your tears fall.
I'll give it all, I won't give up the fight, you know?
I just love, I love that 'cause that's what we do
for our friends, that's what we want people to do for us.
♪ When you feel you've taken all that you can take ♪
Ah, l-ay-dri-an, I suck, I'm not Jennifer Hudson.
Jennifer Hudson sounds really good on this song.
♪ When you feel you've taken all that you can take ♪
♪ And you're sure you're never going to catch a break ♪
♪ And the tears are rivers running down your face, yeah. ♪
- All I ask of our brethren
is that they take their feet off our necks.
- She's badass.
She's a tough little thing.
She's a quiet fighter.
She quietly kicks the shit out of everybody.
For us, for you, for all of us.
That's why that song is so perfect for her.
♪ Oh I know it's a fight ♪
♪ So I'll fight ♪
- And I respect her so much, you know?
Young kids idolize her.
She's a rock star when she goes anywhere,
you know, to like 15 year old kids, and she's 84.
There's hope there.
And that's why I think this song really
is important right now.
I want this to be an anthem.
Kind of like how Stand Up for Something became an anthem.
To what started out Thurgood Marshall
and then it's on Stand Up for Cancer.
So look at how that, that's becoming a song
for representing that.
It's kind of crazy 'cause Andra Day
with Stand Up for Something, I thought it'd be great
to have a rapper on it.
And, like Common, that's who I was thinking.
And a week later I'm on a plane
and he's sitting in back of me.
That's how that happened.
♪ Stand up for you, yes I will, yes I will ♪
- I think I have a bunch of favorite songs,
but I think these last three,
to me it's like a trilogy.
Til It Happens to You, Stand Up for Something,
and now, it's I'll Fight, I'll fight that war for you.
I'm really proud of these new songs.
This is a new thing for me in that these songs
have gotten these amazing lives.
You know, it's really cool to see your songs
be able to empower, effect change, or inspire.
Moving people and touching people,
making them feel something, making them want to dance,
making them want to cry.
Nothing makes me happier, nothing.
'Cause I'm still like the kid from Van Nuys, you know?
I just kind of stayed in to something like that
in a weird way.
(pleasantly dramatic music)